Generations: Why We Just Don't Understand Each Other Anymore

Introduction

Boomers, X, Millennials, Z, Alpha. Five generations living at the same time, often under the same roof, in the same church, and yet feeling like they speak different languages. In this episode of ON S'Y RETROUVE, Patrice Martorano welcomes Claude, Justine, and Lucas (a Boomer, a Millennial, and a Genzer), for a real intergenerational back-and-forth. The finding is stark: according to a European study, between 2000 and 2020, the share of parents who no longer understand their children's life choices rose from 20% to 52%. Why is this gap widening, and above all, how can God's people stay together when everything around them seems to be pulling the generations apart?

Message Outline

1. What makes a generation think and speak differently

• The Silent Generation (born after the Great Depression, World War II, the Algerian War): people who kept quiet, worked hard, and endured. Claude's father used to scrape the bottom of his jam jars with his finger so nothing would go to waste.
• Dominant values: Boomers → effort, merit, hierarchy; Generation X → independence and responsibility; Millennials → collaboration and creativity; Gen Z → inclusion, authenticity, social impact; Alphas → curiosity, speed, experimentation.
• The core motivation: Boomers, "make a success of your life"; Gen X, "find your place"; Millennials, "give it meaning"; Gen Z, "be yourself"; Alphas, "explore and create."
• As Napoleon put it, to understand a man you need to know what his world was like when he was 20. Claude's father lived through World War II between the ages of 7 and 14, then spent 28 months in Algeria. Claude watched the Berlin Wall fall and the USSR collapse, a breath of freedom. Today, it pains him to see everything closing back up. Patrice, for his part, remembers the fall of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, the day "a world collapsed." Lucas points out that soon there will be children who never knew Covid.

2. The factual operating system versus the emotional one

• For Patrice, the biggest source of misunderstanding is the communication "operating system." Up through his generation and the one right after it, people reason factually. Starting with Generation Z, the operating system becomes emotional.
• In Claude's childhood home, children stayed quiet at the table. In Justine's, everyone talked at once. Among young Millennial parents today, the child is put "on the same level" as the adult.
• The relationship to responsibility has completely changed. For Patrice, giving someone responsibility is a way of recognizing their maturity. For Generation Z, taking on responsibility is often seen as a constraint on freedom, on privacy, time, and well-being.
• Lucas confirms this: in his generation, "impostor syndrome" is very present, that constant feeling of not belonging, that someone else would do it better. Patrice replies that everyone goes through that (himself included, as a pastor), but that the real novelty among young people is how their view of freedom weighs on taking responsibility.

3. Tensions and misunderstandings with deep roots

• Every generation tends to look down on the next one. Justine admits she herself judges Alpha trends ("brainrot," "Skibidi Toilets"). And Claude quotes Socrates, five centuries before Christ: "Our youth love luxury, they have bad manners, they despise authority, and they chatter instead of working. They no longer stand up when an elder enters the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before the meal is over, and tyrannize their teachers."
• So the problem is nothing new. But it is getting worse. A European study (conducted between 2000 and 2020 among 8,000 to 10,000 parents) shows that the share of parents who no longer understand their children's decisions and life choices rose from 20% to 52%.
• The changing relationship to work illustrates this shift well: Justine's grandmother worked from age 15 to 77 · her work was her whole life. Today, people no longer identify with their work; they look for meaning elsewhere. A man in 1995 produced 1,900 times more than a man in 1900, thanks to mechanization.
• The relationship to time has shifted too: in Claude's generation, you had to wait three weeks for a letter. Today, everything is instantaneous, and we're already entering an era where the smartphone itself may disappear in favor of smart glasses and watches, with assistant androids starting to come to market.

4. How the people of Israel held together across the ages

• Patrice asks the question: how could a people like Israel hold together for centuries, even in exile, without dissolving, keeping a culture and above all intergenerational bonds?
• One of Lucas's answers: honoring the elderly. In our society, older people are often placed in nursing homes, and the burden carried by the elderly is no longer honored as a treasure.
• Another answer: the Hebrew people knew what they owed to Abraham, to Moses, to their fathers and grandfathers in the faith. This implicit recognition passed from generation to generation and created intergenerational connection.
• Patrice brings up the opposite example: Solomon's son, Rehoboam. When the elders advised him to lighten the people's burden, he listened instead to his young companions, who had him say: "My little finger is thicker than my father's waist." The result: the kingdom exploded, and there was a schism.
• Young people need to recognize what their elders prepared for them. And elders, like "Papa Jean," need to step back to support the rising generation, even when it brings things they were never taught (video in church, identity in Christ, and so on).

5. The challenge of the generational bond in the Church

• For Patrice, this is a burden he carries for the season ahead: what will hold the Church together is that the generations don't blow apart, because the pressure will be so great that it will take the resources of every generation to hold on.
• The strength of Patrice's grandfather wasn't being good "generationally." He spoke German better than French; he moved at a grandfather's pace. His real strength was that his one compass was the cause of the Gospel. "Does it win souls? Yes. Then it's wonderful, let's do it." That made him very flexible.
• 50% of children born in France today are born into single-parent families. The mother has to do everything, and day-to-day intergenerational connection becomes rare. In its place, other voices (social media and others), take on the weight of transmission.
• Lucas emphasizes two keys he learned from his grandmother: time (you cannot understand an older person without spending time with them) and recognizing your own limits (accepting that you don't know everything, and that there is wisdom in the previous generation).
• Patrice adds a matching challenge: his generation and Justine's must also invest now in the bond with the younger ones (the Alphas), or else they will repeat exactly the same mistake as before: disqualifying what they don't understand.

6. What the Bible says about transmission

• Proverbs 30:12-13 describes "a generation that is pure in its own eyes, yet is not washed from its filthiness, a generation whose eyes are lofty, and whose eyelids are lifted up."
• Titus 2 says that older women are to teach younger women to manage a household and care for children. This is a model of transmission through relationship, not just content.
• Psalm 78 says: "What we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us, we will not hide from their children. We will tell the coming generation the praises of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done." Telling, sharing one's story, speaking, sitting around a table to pass things on.
• What Lucas shares at the end: many young people in Generation Z dream of a spiritual father or mother, a mentor, someone who invests in them. This need is massive in the Church, because on top of the double burden of their generation, many also face a lack of guidance at home.
• Patrice's answer: more than a formal coach or mentor, what's needed is to tighten generational bonds on a broader level. When bonds are tight within a family, the question of a coach doesn't even come up, transmission happens naturally. Concretely, at Momentum Church: 25-30 year-olds are invited to join adult life groups as a priority, so they can find with their elders what society no longer gives them.

Key Takeaways

• Understanding a generation means putting yourself in its context: what it experienced at age 20.
• The big divide today isn't just about values, it's the "operating system": the younger generations run on emotion, the older ones on fact. Without realizing it, we simply don't understand each other.
• The problem of generations dismissing one another is as old as Socrates, but the gap is widening (52% of parents no longer understanding their children in 2020, versus 20% in 2000).
• What allowed Israel to hold together across the centuries was a shared direction and intergenerational recognition. Rehoboam blew up the kingdom the day he listened to his young companions instead of the elders.
• In the Church, the key isn't formal coaching, it's connection. Young people need time and the recognition of their own limits; elders need flexibility for the sake of the Gospel; Millennials need to invest now in the bond with the Alphas.

Personal Application

1. Which generation do I belong to, and what deep-seated values do I carry without even realizing it: effort, independence, meaning, being myself, exploration?
2. When I talk with someone from another generation and I don't understand them, do I pause to identify their "operating system" (factual or emotional), or do I jump too quickly to concluding they're wrong?
3. Is there someone from another generation in my life today with whom I truly take the time to talk, like Lucas with his grandmother?
4. If I'm an elder in the faith, do I have "Papa Jean's" flexibility to support a generation that will do things differently than I did, as long as the cause of the Gospel moves forward?
5. In my family or in my life group, what could I start sharing (a story, a testimony, a memory), so that the next generation knows "what the LORD has done" (Psalm 78)?

Bible Verses Cited

• Proverbs 30:12-13
• 1 Kings 12 (Rehoboam and the elders)
• Titus 2 (older women teach younger women)
• Psalm 78:3-4

Further reading

• How to Prepare a Small Group Bible Study
• Home Group Themes: 30 Ideas
• Welcoming New Participants in a Small Group

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do generations today struggle so much to understand each other?

Because each generation's context is very different (war for some, the Berlin Wall for others, 9/11, Covid, social media...) and because the communication "operating system" is changing: older generations reason factually, whereas starting with Generation Z, the operating system becomes very emotional. A European study shows that between 2000 and 2020, the share of parents who no longer understand their children rose from 20% to 52%.

What does the Bible say about transmission between generations?

Psalm 78 calls each generation to tell the next what the LORD has done. Titus 2 entrusts older women with training younger women. 1 Kings 12, by contrast, tells how Rehoboam blew up the kingdom the day he listened to his young companions rather than the elders. And Proverbs 30 warns against "the generation that is pure in its own eyes" and has lofty eyelids. The common thread: the next generation must recognize what it receives, and the previous one must have the flexibility to support it.

How do you live out intergenerational connection concretely in the Church today?

At Momentum Church, the direction set by Patrice Martorano is clear: when 25-30 year-olds look for a life group, they are first directed toward adult life groups rather than groups made up only of young people. There, they find spiritual fathers and mothers, someone who helps with car repairs, gardening, taking care of a baby, or praying. For young people, it means spending time with elders and recognizing their own limits. For elders, it means keeping "Papa Jean's" flexibility: if it serves the cause of the Gospel, let's do it.